She poured the powdered thistledoon into her hand again, then clenched her teeth and slid the knife out of her side, gasping. Stars blinded her vision.

“Fairy?” Wolf asked, his voice like sandpaper.

It was enough to remind her where she was, what she had to do. She smacked her palm against her side and smeared thistledoon into the wound, painting her skin with blood in the process. She bit her knuckle as the thistledoon did its work, stinging like salt against her raw flesh. The pain was almost enough to push her over the brink to unconsciousness.

She held her side and curled into Wolf, tucking herself into the space against his chest, away from his healing belly. “Wolf,” she whispered, answering him. “We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. Just . . . rest.” Her eyes fluttered, tempted to close.

Something shimmery darted through the trees. Fairy sat up, as excruciating as the movement was. At first, she thought it was a beetle, but then it landed right in front of them.

“One of Spirit’s messenger rays,” she said.

Wolf stirred beside her, but he didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if he was still awake.

Fairy’s hands shook. Would the message explain why her gemina bond had gone dark? What if it was a distress call? She fumbled with the tiny paper and only managed to get it open after four tries.

Fairy read aloud, in case Wolf was listening. “‘We have Prince Gin’s soul. But Broomstick fell in the Lake of Nightmares, and he’s not quite himself.’”

It was suddenly hard to breathe, and she didn’t know if it was this news about Broomstick or the knife wound in her side. Or both.

She forced herself to keep reading Sora’s message. “‘We’re going to Paro Village to recover. If you can fly, please meet us there, and bring Liga. Maybe he’ll know how to help.’”

Fairy collapsed against Wolf’s chest. The swell of relief and distress, combined with the pain of her wounds, was too much. Broomstick was alive, thank the gods. But what had happened to him in the Lake of Nightmares? No wonder Fairy’s gemina bond had gone blank.

Wolf shifted and stretched his leg to wrap around her. “We’ll go . . . soon,” he said.

She wanted to believe it. But she also knew things could end badly if they tried to travel while hurt like this. “We’re no good to them, no good to Kichona, if we’re dead.”

“Sleep, then,” he said. “When we wake up, we’ll . . .”

Wolf didn’t finish what he was going to say. And it didn’t matter anyway because Fairy could barely hold on to consciousness either. The pain of her wound and her anxiety over Broomstick conspired against her, and like weighted curtains, her eyelids fell closed.